Secondary Modern School

The Secondary Modern School ( secondary modern ) was a type of school in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the early 1970s. She was part of a three -tier school system and should accommodate the majority of students. In most parts of the United Kingdom, these schools were replaced by comprehensive schools.

Origins

With the Butler Education Act of 1944, a system in which the children were tested at the age of 11 years and divided into different types of schools was created. Those who were considered less talented for an academic, scientific and technical training, came to the Secondary Modern School. There she received a broad-based, practice-oriented education. She focused on basic skills such as arithmetic, as well as craft and domestic skills such as carpentry work and cooking. With the Education Reform Act of 1988, all the schools were given a uniform curriculum. Prior to the teaching program matter was each school.

The first of these schools resulting from the conversion of around three thousand senior elementary schools, were asked to pay before the school until the age of 14 years. Many more have been built by the end of the Second World War until 1965 to ensure universal secondary education.

Tripartite System

The examination at the age of 11 years, called Eleven Plus was used to distribute children to grammar schools and secondary modern schools. In some regions, there was additionally the Technical Schools. The thesis that the audit favored middle-class children is controversial. However, there are strong indications that grammar schools were mostly attended by children of the middle class and Secondary Modern Schools mainly of children of the lower classes.

The baby boomer generation born in the years 1957 to 1970 was particularly affected because the grammar schools had expanded its capacity is not in accordance with the growing number of students. This exceeded the requirements of the study. Students who would have been included in previous years in the Grammar School, were now divided into the Secondary Modern School.

The Butler Education Act foresaw same appreciation of the schools. Nevertheless, the Secondary Modern School was regarded as a school for Unsuccessful. She prepared students for the Certificate of Secondary Education before, but not for the more prestigious O level. In later years, preparatory courses have been set up for this, but less than 10 % of the students participated. Secondary Modern Schools offered no preparation for the A Level examination, which is a prerequisite for university study. In 1963 there were only 318 graduates of the Secondary Modern School, the A Level. None of them attended a university.

Grammar schools possessed generally have a higher budget per pupil as Secondary Modern Schools. This affected both materials and the teaching staff. The Newsom Report of 1963 reported that in poor areas of central London in some schools 15 -year-olds sat on chairs that were meant for elementary school students. Staff turnover was high, the continuity in the classroom minimal. Not all secondary modern schools were so bad, but generally suffered from this school branch under the lower esteem by the administration.

Criticism

The ablest of the pupils of the Secondary Modern School were particularly disadvantaged by their equipment. The opportunities to provide them with the best education were limited:

• In contrast to Grammar Schools Secondary Modern Schools were not equipped to open the way to a students academic training. After their initial formulation, they should save their students degrading effects of external audits. Therefore, the students initially did not get access to the O -level and A- level exam. During the 1950s, some schools participated in the preparation for the O Level on in their program. However, the general academic education at the Secondary Modern continued to enjoy less prestige than at the Grammar School.

• Students who had done well in O level, had difficulty to qualify for the A Level. In the 1950s and early 1960s grammar schools generally took no students who had taken a good O Level and now wanted to learn for the A Level. Such students had left the school system and to continue their education, for example, in evening classes.

In the 1960s, criticism of the limitations of the Secondary Modern School grew, starting from parents of children of the baby boomer generation. The system was transparent, and the pupils of the Secondary Modern Schools that passed their O Level, achieved comparable results as the pupils of the Grammar Schools.

Replacement by community schools

The criticism led to calls for reform. In the 1950s, tests began with community schools. Several counties, including Leicestershire, the Secondary Modern School abolished completely. In 1965, the then Labour Government to issue 10/65 the system of community schools. 1976 Secondary Modern Schools were formally abolished - except for some regions and municipalities, among them Kent, Dorset, Buckinghamshire, Stoke -on-Trent, Slough, the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral and Ripon.

Secondary Modern Schools Today

Some counties still proceed after the selective system and maintain schools similar to the previous Secondary Modern Schools. Colloquially, but not officially, these schools are known as high schools ( in Medway and Trafford ), Upper Schools ( in Buckinghamshire ) or all- Ability Schools. There they are also in Northern Ireland, where they are referred to as secondary schools, secondary schools. In Lincolnshire, Wirral, Kent, and in Buckinghamshire they are also referred to as community schools, community schools.